The Berkeley Archives: Jon Yip Talks to Himself

A Systematic Commentary On My Life At Berkeley

Spring 2002

Week 4: Preparation for Sleep

2-10-2002

A normal Friday last week. Worked out, goofed around, lost hundreds of dollars from buying InVision stock. At 2:00 I went to my Film 108 class, which started out amazingly boring but gradually got better. After that I went back to Davidson, packed, ate, and took the BART back to Fremont. On the train, I tried doing a little of my reading but I must have been too tired or something because I got dizzy pretty quickly. So I just snoozed instead. On the way back from Fremont, Dad took me to Fry’s, where I picked up my coaxial cable for the TV card. I went sleep pretty late that night, watching the Olympic opening ceremony and some of Leno’s Clinton-bashing, which was pretty funny. The ceremonies were neat; there was a lot of neat tricks, like the Olympic rings in fire on the little main rink.

Saturday was the day of the skirmish. I arose at an unholy hour and drove over to Dave’s house, where Leedah had already arrived. We waited for a long time for Alo to arrive, but he didn’t, so we just left without him. Later, though, he called up and met up with us at the site. Zeke also drove himself. When we arrived, there was a ton of people there, but the terrain wasn’t that good; it was basically all the same thing: a long, wooded ravine. I couldn’t see anything because it was all homogeneous, dense woods. Worse, our team was put on the attacking team, which meant we had to but under fire from hidden, stationed people behind plywood forts from above. We couldn’t see and we had to constantly move uphill. In the second game, Dave and I spent most of the time together. We got out on one instance, and we went back into the game together with a bunch of other guys, we were immediately sprayed with a hail of BB’s coming from a giant, stationary machine gun (actually just a super-souped MP5, 450 fps) and I got hit repeatedly in the neck, which KILLED. I got quite a few painful hits total: a hit on my thigh that left a purple blood blister, and a pistol hit to my chin. Leedah, unbelievably, racked up 7 kills. I came out with a meager 2-3 kills, all of which were ambiguous because I wasn’t the only one shooting at them. The best kill of the day was when Dave popped a dude on the other side of the tree trunk in front of which we were standing. The guy was standing so close, and he complained about that wimpy “parle” thing, but Dave reasoned that he was going to shoot us anyway.

After two games (both of which we lost) we headed back (stopping at a McDonald’s on the way), and Leslie and I went to the cell group’s fun event. We essentially played Charades for hours. At last, I started coming up with good topics again.

Today Ralph made a good sermon about Elijah. If your life doesn’t match up with the Bible, then you can’t say the Bible is lying. Your LIFE is lying!

We were SUPPOSED to see The Count of Monte Cristo today but no one else wanted to, so we didn’t. But I got some nifty weight gloves from Big 5. We also went to CompUSA and got some stuff. We ate some good food at night, and then I went back to Berkeley with Leon and Jean.

I have cable TV now! I can watch TV! AND I can make it a small window and keep it on top so I can do work while I watch. Excellent! Oh man, I have to work on my paper...

2-11-2002

I worked out with Leon today, and I got to use those new weight gloves! Whee! And I benched a pretty good amount: 105, and quite a few reps too. At lunch there was just too much good food, and I gave in and pigged out, justifying my behavior with the fact that I didn’t eat breakfast. Drama 60 was mundane, as usual, but something interesting happened. This girl, out of the blue, introduces herself to me (her name was Gloria... why does everyone I know only cycle through a small list of names?) and struck up some light conversation with me before class started. Why would someone do something like that? Maybe I should do that more often.

In the Film 108 screening we watched The Love Parade, in the beginning of which I did NOT fall asleep (although a passed out for a good bit in the middle, even though the movie was actually quite interesting and funny). I sat there, all fidgety, during the lecture, waiting for the instructor to let us loose. She finally did, and I went to eat a lot again for dinner (this time my justification was “working out,” and I needed more protien).

I spent the rest of the night working on my paper and watching the Olympics in my convenient little window that I keep on the side. Some AWESOME half-pipe snowboarding took place today. WOW. I should have recorded that stuff.

The work on the paper was long and hard, but I finished, at 3:00 in the morning! I am DEAD TIRED! AND I have to wake up early enough tomorrow to get to the computer center and print it out. What a hassle! That place should be open all the time, 24/7.

2-12-2002

Oh man, I stayed up until after 3:00 last night finishing up that stupid essay, and I had to wake up at 8:00 this morning to print it in the computing center. I then went to eat breakfast with Leon. I came back to do a bit of reading, and Peter told me that he is transferring to a state school, and is moving back to Los Angeles tomorrow! What a shock! AND he’s changing his major back to English!

I almost fell asleep in my English 100 class due to my major lack of sleep. The stagecraft lab was also long and rife with toil. A few agonizing minutes were spent lugging giant heavy lights up dank, claustrophobic, winding sets of stairs, but I spent the pretty much time painting this “GIVE UP – IT’S OVER” sign a darker shade of gray because the lighting designer decided to change it. I was painting with Andrea, who I THINK was the same Andrea that was in the lab before, but I could not be sure because she had these dreadlocks that rendered her unrecognizable.

I came back, ate, and went to small group. It was really good; I seem to be learning more in the Bible studies now, more than before. It ended kind of late, but when I came back, Peter and I still went on with our plan of watching a movie. We watched Final Fantasy, which Peter liked. Oh yeah, I watched Shanghai Noon today too.

Now I have two enormous, bright red bruises on each shin; one from airsofting and one from bashing it against a flat during stagecraft. OWCH!!!

2-13-2002

Peter rented a car and left this morning. I took a couple of pictures of us just before he left. I certainly will miss having someone with whom to have intriguing conversations, as well as a good roommate. I suppose that someone will move in sooner or later now.

Today at the RSF Leon and I went downstairs to the boxing room and punched the bags around a bit, then we did some benching; I benched 125 lbs. today! Leon thinks we were lifted more today because of the boxing beforehand. Actually, it’s pretty amazing that Leon and I haven’t missed a day yet. We’ve stuck to it every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday so far.

It was raining today. Yay! In Stagecraft I was on the brink of slumber throughout, drifting in and out of consciousness, and yet I managed to write down all the notes from his PowerPoint presentation (though I was unaware of what I was writing). Too tired to go on, I dropped into bed when I returned to my room and stayed there for two hours.

Mildly refreshed from my nap, I did a little reading for English 100 and went to Kip’s, where the Coen Brothers decal was supposed to be held. Wow, my first time in a bar! The worst part was, the VCR was messed up, so it broke the tape of Blood Simple. The supervisor decal guy went to rent Raising Arizona, but that tape messed up too, so we didn’t get to watch anything! We just left early.

I ate, finished up my reading, and relaxed for the evening, browsing about Ebay and stuff like that.

That big dent on my left shin is killing me. I can actually see the depression in my leg. ARGH! Another thing; my eye seems to be twitching more again. It’s SO annoying!!!

Woof! I just played some smashing worship downstairs (and scared everybody out of the room...ha ha ha) as preparation for sleep. I think it will work, too. Good night.

2-14-2002

The usual. Ate breakfast this morning with Leon. You know, now that I look at it, we haven’t missed a morning breakfast before either. We being pretty consistent this semester.

I started watching Evolution before class and wound up watching half of the thing. Then I went to English 100, which wasn’t as boring as it has been lately (possibly due to the caffeine I had at lunch), then I went to the Stagecraft class, which also was not quite as mundane as usual. This was largely due to the activities being a little more fun; I got to drill holes and put legs on to tables, and other stuff like that.

At dinner, Suzy, Meti, and Shaila sat down with me and we spent a good bit of time exchanging meaningless and entertaining banter regarding finishing your food, how I can’t understand girls, and Valentine’s Day. AHA! I am slowly, but surely, breaking out my hermetic style of living and am starting to actually have a slight semblance of social life. THIS BAD BOY IS BACK IN THE GAME, BABY! Aha, ha, ha... Sigh...

I finished the rest of Evolution, which was a pretty funny movie with good special effects. I tried to read that infernal, jargon-infested musical book, but I was wholeheartedly distracted by the Olympics, and then Leon and I went out to the Underhill parking lot and played some hockey for a while. In total, we played at least an hour, and most likely more, and I learned how to turn around, and cross-over better, and skate backwards. I fell on my elbow and bruised it (good thing I ANTICIPATED that beforehand and wore my trusty leather jacket, which later stank like freakin’ herr because of all my sweat and crap. Ugh, it was disgusting). I went back to my room, watched some more Olympics, and then Leon came over to watch the women’s hockey game: USA versus China. The USA won by an disturbingly long shot: 11-1. We also played guitar for a short while.

When it was much too late to do anything but sleep, Leon and I then went on a time-consuming excursion to rearrange my room. It was a long and strenuous journey, but eventually we made it, and now my room looks pretty zarking nifty. Whee!

I have all these damned bruises all over me now, and they are bothering me; not to mention my EYE TWITCHING is coming back again! DAMN IT!!! I HATE IT!

2-15-2002

It was so hard to get up this morning, at 7:30, especially since I went to sleep at 2:30 in the morning last night. We played basketball at the RSF. Guess who was there? Karl, from Mission San Jose in Fremont! I didn’t recognize him at first because he cut his hair, but he knew me as Gloria’s friend. We played for a fairly long time, then I came back and ate with Leon, Elizabeth, and Tim. Before going to class at 2:00, I tried to finish my reading but I just skimmed through, comprehending and retaining nothing. I couldn’t concentrate, as usual.

I couldn’t believe it. The professor talked a little bit about the syllabus, and then went into the lecture, and IMMEDIATELY (I am not exaggerating) I fell asleep. For the next hour and a half, I drifted in and out of sleep, until the last chunk of class in which I actually paid attention because we started watching movie clips. Man.

Intervarsity was OK tonight; there was a lot of games. Right now there is this big party thing in Meti and Shaila’s room; Meti dragged me in there and forced me to “socialize,” which basically meant talking with this piss drunk dude who turned 21 right then. He also spilled an alcoholic beverage on my pants and socks when he collapsed onto the ground. They’re still all making noise over there. Everybody is running around drunk. This one girl had to have someone help her take a piss and she was making all these funny noised from the stall, groaning and making a ruckus. Sheesh. Oh yeah, I watched Swordfish.

I HATE, HATE, HATE this eye twitch!!! I think I’m going freaking MAD!!!